Building for Health/YWCA
Artist
Marie Danforth Page
United States
Date1918
MediumStone Lithograph
Dimensions45 1/2 x 29 1/2 in. (115.6 x 74.9 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.5831
DescriptionThis was probably the only poster designed by the Boston portrait painter Marie Danforth Page. It promotes the campaign of the Young Women's Christian Association (Y.W.C.A.), "Building for Health," during World War I. The American Y.W.C.A. had been founded in 1858, only a few years after the original one in London; both were evangelical organizations intended to protect single working women from the moral and social iniquities of city life. By the time this poster was published, however, the Y.W.C.A. USA had become a largely secular operation focused on women's health issues, sex education, support for immigrant women, and social and political activism. The mores of the time nonetheless required its message to be presented using the conventional image, with its obvious Christian overtones, of a well-dressed mother lovingly embracing her child.On View
Not on view
